Code of Ethics | Accountability Counsel

IAWG 2017 Retreat in California

Accountability Counsel is pleased to share a Code of Ethics that memorializes an approach our organization has long used toward our work in communities.

We worked with a number of our civil society colleagues through the International Advocates’ Working Group to adapt the language in the code, with permission, from the Community Engagement Policy published by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand School of Law in Johannesburg, South Africa. By adopting the Code of Ethics, we seek to further three common goals:

Ensuring that communities harmed by internationally-financed projects have access to support to use non-judicial grievance mechanisms,
Ensuring that communities seeking such support have an identifiable group to turn to for assistance with known ethical standards, and
Ensuring that all parties, including non-judicial grievance mechanisms and communities, understand the ethical commitments of such advocates.